Hero of the Elemental Nations: Wrath
by Kurogane7
Summary: AU: Naruto has gained power becoming the reincarnation of a Berserker-class Servant, and has become a man who can survive in the bloody world of the Kunoichi Nations. What changes will he bring? Can he control the power of Mad Enhancement? Berserker!Naruto, eventual Naruto/Harem, second attempt at a Fate/First Male Nin story. Rated T for now.
1. Storytime

_**A/N: I've had this idea brewing in my head for a while now…ever since I started seeing the fights in the "Fate" series. To be honest, it was a toss-up as to what I wanted to do with this story, especially regarding how execute this. Until I get enough reviews to know what I will do with the original story, you can consider this an alternate version of the original "Hero of the Elemental Nations". Aside from that, do read and review; and if you sincerely like this experimental chapter, would you kindly advertise it to your friends?**_

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><p>{Play: "Sakura" by Toshiro Masuda from "Naruto"}<p>

[Konohagakure no Sato Orphanage─nighttime…]

It was a very nice night; clear indigo skies serving as a backdrop for the Hokage Monument that looked down upon the village of Konohagakure no Sato, with the light of the full moon illuminating it. Were one to look with binoculars upon the sight, they would see that there was an orphanage near the foot of the mountain range where the hand-carved faces of Senju Hashirama, Senju Tobirama, Sarutobi Hiromi, and Namikaze Minako seemed to hold vigil in protecting the orphans that lived in the building underneath.

The sound of the orphans gathering together served to increase the joy of the atmosphere in the room. It should be energetic; it was story night after all. Every child was excited to listen to the orphanage matron, Unohana; she was a stunning woman at age 34 with a sort of appearance that seemed to scream 'motherly' in many different languages, with her black hair divided queued up in a braid in front of her, indigo eyes that seemed to make people feel good, and had a singing voice that the matriarch of the Haruno merchant clan would sell her soul to have…a voice that she was trying to calm the children down with: "All right children, settle down or you won't get story night tonight…and that means you too, Naruto-kun!"

Everyone in the room settled down so that the matron could tell the story…even the whisker-marked little boy named Naruto with sun-kissed golden hair and cerulean eyes. He didn't like when she looked at him in a mean way for making trouble (not that anybody who knew her well could blame him), but he loved her all the same just like any of the other orphans. "Okay then, for tonight's story, I will tell you all about the two Nio!" As she said this, she dramatically held out a book depicting two large, half-naked, and burly men with top knots on their bald heads and angry looks on their faces. One of the men had a closed mouth, and was wielding a weird-looking sword, while the other man had his mouth open and his teeth gnashing. Both seemed to be in a pose that seemed to drive people away.

"Now then," she said, opening the book and showing the picture of the two men standing guard over a baby, "the Nio are a pair of guardians who have sworn to protect the baby Buddha, and work to help him do his work. But who are these guardians? Where did they come from? And how did they come to protect the Buddha?"

At that, Unohana turned the page, revealing the picture of the open-mouthed Nio, with what looked like evil spirits fleeing from him. "And now we will start with the open-mouthed Nio."

The next page showed the open-mouthed Nio looking triumphant─the teeth on his face seemed to tell Naruto that he was very happy at the time. "The open-mouthed Nio was once a great warrior, and a strong man that was said to have been half-god. He mastered the art of fighting, and was known as a hero."

What he saw of the next page seemed to make him feel bad: the open-mouthed Nio was hunched over and looked like he was crying over a woman and children lying around. "But unfortunately, his happiness was not to last; one night, he was driven mad by a goddess, and made to kill his wife and children."

"But why did the goddess do that to him?" asked a little girl with a bowl cut, her wide and adorable eyes in shock at what the goddess did.

"Nobody knows, Lin-chan," answered Unohana, trying to placate the young girl, "but what is known is that the open-mouthed Nio felt bad about what happened; even though it wasn't really his fault, he still felt like it was. And so he went on a journey." As she said this, she turned a page to show twelve square pictures where the open-mouthed Nio was doing things in each one. "He went on a quest to do twelve impossible tasks to make up for what he did…tasks that the world would know as the 'Twelve Labors'."

Unohana turned the page, revealing the Nio triumphant once again. "When he was done with all twelve things he had to do, the open-mouthed Nio was free…he'd made up for what he'd done! He was free!"

"Unohana-san, what about the close-mouthed Nio?" asked a girl with buns in her dark brown hair.

"I'll be getting to that now, Tenten-chan." said Unohana, turning the page to show the close-mouthed Nio, being surrounded by a veritable paradise of flowers and rivers. "This is the tale of the close-mouthed Nio."

She turned the picture, showing the close-mouthed Nio, with his sword in hand, kneeling before a man with a crown on his head and an intricate-looking sword in his hands along with armored men. "The close-mouthed Nio was a hero that served a mortal king along with other warriors. This one however, was well-known because he was handsome enough to attract any woman he wanted, and could use any weapon he wished as though he'd used it all his life."

The next page showed the close-mouthed Nio with a beautiful woman in his arms. "The close-mouthed Nio, like his snarling friend, was a hero; however, his tragedy came when he fell in love with a woman married to his king. Because of people saying bad things about him and the woman he loved, he eventually wound up doing bad things like killing his fellow warriors."

Naruto wondered what the close-mouthed Nio was doing, because he was standing in what looked like a body of water with another beautiful woman before him. "The close-mouthed Nio felt so bad about what he did, betraying his fellow warriors and his king that he went to the lake to see his foster-mother, the lake spirit, about what to do."

The next page showed that the close-mouthed Nio was walking away dejectedly from his fellow warriors. "When he heard that his fellow warriors were going to war, the close-mouthed Nio offered to join them…but the warrior in command at the time refused, as the close-mouthed Nio killed his brother and two of his sons. He begged, and pleaded to come along, but was refused at every turn."

"But that didn't stop him from seeking penance for his misdeeds," said Unohana, turning the page, "he went on many adventures, doing things to try and redeem himself for what he did. But he would be unable to forgive himself for the rest of his life. It is said that even after his death, he seeks penance."

The next page showed the picture of the two Nio meeting and fighting. "It would be a long time until the two Nio would cross paths, and by that time, both had already died. As soon as they met, they fought each other, and the fight they had shook the foundations of the world.

"Until Buddha came before them, and pacified both of them," said Unohana, showing the picture of a peaceful looking man standing between the two Nio. "After speaking with both of them and befriending them, he granted them a mission: the open-mouthed Nio would protect the baby Buddha by frightening away evil spirits, while the close-mouthed Nio would keep the good teachings from escaping."

The final page showed the two Nio standing guard at a temple door. "And that is why today, we have Nio guarding temple doors…and why children should be going to bed now."

Groaning was heard in the crowd of children as they made their displeasure known. They really wanted to stay up longer to hear the rest of the story. "I've kept you all up long enough!" she said, half-seriously and half-playfully, "it's time for bed!"

Seeing no other alternative, and not wanting to be subject to another of Unohana-san's ice-cold glares, the children slowly got up and started making for the bedrooms. Teeth were being brushed and mouths gargled in preparation for sleep. As Naruto slid into his futon in between Tenten and Lin, he could not help but wonder. Could he meet the Nio one day? Would they tell him about their lives?

As he looked on at both Tenten and Lin, he promised himself that if he should meet either of the Nio, he would ask for the power to protect the both of them, no matter what!

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><p><em><strong>AN: A bit short, but then again, this is an experimental chapter. If more of you think I should delete the original Hero of Elemental Nations, and make this the definitive one, I will keep that in mind even here on this story. If you want me to keep this a separate story and give the original a separate title to differentiate it, I want to hear it too. Either way, I'd like opinions.**_

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><p><em><strong>Vocabulary<strong>_

_**Nio─these are actual stone Buddha Guardians that are also known as Kongorikishi. They come in pairs; one with a closed mouth and the other with an open one. The Nio with the open mouth scares off evil and sin, while the Nio with the closed mouth keeps good teachings in. Rumor has it that they are both based on Buddhist Indians hearing the tales of Heracles from Alexander the Great's forces.**_


	2. Taken

_**A/N: 11 reviews on the first chapter? I must be doing something right. In any case, do read and review, would you kindly?**_

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><p>{Play: "Sakura" by Toshiro Masuda from "Naruto"}<p>

[Somewhere in Konohagakure no Sato─afternoon…]

It'd been three years since Naruto was told the tale of the Nio, and he'd grown in that time. The nine-year-old had seen a lot of things in his time out of the orphanage; though he'd wished that he could stay with the orphanage matron longer…and while he liked Isane-nee well enough, he supposed he really missed Unohana-san a lot. Unfortunately, Retsu Unohana, the matron of the orphanage, was killed by some wandering psycho with a big and worn-down sword named "Zaraki Kenpachi", leaving Isane-nee under the employ of some evil old bitch named Grelod. When Naruto turned seven, while Tenten and Lin were successfully adopted by parents, it was Grelod that kicked him out to the curb a few days after Lin was adopted, despite Isane-nee's protests.

After hearing that he'd been kicked out of the orphanage, the Hokage herself sent a team of her ANBU to find him. Last he'd heard, Grelod was put in jail for 'child abuse' and 'torture', along with something he'd heard was child mola…molest…damn it! He just couldn't say the word! But he supposed that Grelod did something she wasn't supposed to be doing with children, so she was put in jail for that too. '_Good thing that evil bitch is dead.'_ he silently thought to himself.

As he thought back on the past, he also remembered the good things that came with it. Tenten and Lin had been his friends since they first met when they were about three; something that Unohana-san allowed while she was alive, and the three of them had grown close. By the time of the storytime about the Nio guardians, the three of them were already besties with a relationship that bordered on sibling love. After they discovered what happened to Naruto, they started visiting him often even after they'd joined the Kunoichi academy…which was the case as of now.

"Seriously? A bow?" asked Tenten, looking at him with scorn, "A bow's not going to do you much good in the real world!"

Naruto turned to face Tenten while lowering his bow and arrow. "Leave me alone! Besides, guys have the right to protect themselves too!"

It was true; for as long as anyone could remember, real warriors tended to be women. While both men and women had chakra coils, only women had the ability to truly take advantage of the miracle energy known as chakra for various purposes. That is not to say that men cannot use chakra, it's just that they do not have the inherent ability to manipulate it; however, they could use their own chakra signatures to trigger seals, as well as a good many minor things such as low-level healing if their ability to manipulate chakra is strong enough.

For this reason, and Naruto didn't know how it came to be (or even how it worked), a lot of kunoichi clans tended to have same-sex marriages to increase the odds that a girl would be born. Boys born from such a union were often either kept around as servants until a political marriage could be arranged, or were disowned (to which he wondered if that was the case). All this while listening to Natsumi speak up front in class.

"Are you sure? Because last I saw, kunai were a lot scarier, and had a lot more uses than a bow." Ah, speak of the devil! He'd just remembered who else was watching! Saotome Natsumi was a girl with crimson hair and indigo eyes that was around Naruto's age, that was adopted by Saotome Ranko and her…was it wife, or life-partner? Anyway, she was adopted by Saotome Ranko and her significant other Saotome Akane (nee Tendo) from a different orphanage. Even though the two of them had only a few classes with each other, they became real close.

"Well that's because all us boys can use are the stuff you girls throw away!" shot back Naruto, "And besides, how can you hunt in the wilderness when all you've got is a kunai? A bow has much better range, and is better-suited for hunting than a kunai!"

"Well at least we can carry more kunai than arrows for bows!"

"Are we done here? Because I still want to show you what I learned before I go off to spar with Lin-chan."

It was a little recent, but one day, Naruto decided to do a little exploration. Eventually, he found a cave with a pair of torii in front of it; he walked in and he found what looked like a pair of Nio guardians keeping vigil in a room. Whatever happened down there, Tenten didn't know; because he was found laying on the ground unconscious between the two Nio. But what she did know was that it changed her friend in more ways than one. For starters, he joined the archery club and had proven to be a deadshot with a bow…which upset a lot of the male student body, although some were intrigued by how good of a shot he was. Much to her jealousy, he was also popular with the girls in the club too (of which Uchiha Sachiko was also a member).

Then there were also a few disturbing changes, such as his bully music teacher…the teacher seemed to enjoy bullying Naruto, but eventually his rage had gotten to the point where he tried to murder him only to be accidentally killed in self-defense by being beaten to death with the shamisen that an angry Naruto was having trouble playing. Of course, Naruto felt bad; according to him, the man was an ass to him, but that didn't mean that he had to die. And so, in apology for what he did to the music teacher, he'd worked to make amends to the man's foster daughter Yakushi Kaede…who just so happened to be in the archery club too.

His punishment? He was to allow Kaede to play doctor with him until she saw fit to forgive him…literally, she wanted to be a doctor, and the opportunity for a living guinea pig was too much for her. This meant that she bandaged him up in all kinds of positions, force-fed him medicines that may as well have been poisons if his complaints on their taste were any indication, as well as jabbing him with a lot of needles and scalpels. What got Tenten's attention at the time was that Naruto thought he was going to get hurt, but for some reason, the needles and scalpels seemed to break upon coming into contact with his skin and tissue. Confused as to how this was so, Kaede had agreed to lay off on the surgeries, acupuncture, and the injections until she could find a way to get under his skin…whether she meant that figuratively or literally, neither Tenten nor Natsumi knew, but she'd be damned if she let that Yakushi girl get away with a lot of the things she made Naruto go through.

Next thing that happened was that he was riding the back of one of the Inuzuka Clan's larger dogs, rodeo-style. It was surprising to the girls, because of how fast those dogs could get, especially when they go wild…not to mention the amount of strength and stamina it would've taken to hang on without so much as a saddle. This impressed the Inuzuka matriarch so much that she welcomed him to the compound whenever she needed help wrestling down a large and wild dog in her veterinary clinic.

Since that day, Naruto had unwittingly found himself for on-call work whenever the Inuzuka clan needed help wrestling down dogs that were flailing around in pain. Eventually, both of the Inuzuka heiresses had come to see the boy that could pin down large dogs as though he were in a wrestling match. Because of his interactions with Inuzuka Hana and Inuzuka Kira, he'd earned himself a few new friends that visited him whenever they could find the time. Now those girls, Tenten, Natsumi, and Lin could agree with…unlike Kaede, whose friendliness towards Naruto was questionable at best, especially since she stole his first kiss after deciding to hold off on poking at Naruto anymore.

Overall, there were a lot of things that seemed to change in Naruto…even more so when Tenten and Lin decided to teach him how to defend himself. For some strange reason, he took to any weapon she threw at him like a fish to water; although he preferred the bow for most jobs, he was more than a match in close-quarters combat when equipped with a melee weapon, particularly if it were a sword or an axe. And when Lin-chan decided to spar with him in open-handed combat, he was able to take to her training smoothly and seamlessly.

Back to the present however, Tenten and Natsumi watched as Naruto readied his bow and had his foot ready at a catapult with three apples. A single stomp was all it took, before Naruto drew the bow and let loose three arrows in quick succession, allowing them to pin the apples to a tree in one shot. "Cool!" said Tenten, marvelling at the skill Naruto had displayed.

"Awesome!" was Natsumi's own response.

"I know!"

"Yosh! Are you ready for our spar, Naruto-kun?"

Both Naruto and Tenten had turned to see that the speaker was the lanky form of Rock Lin. At first, her hair was a normal bob-cut, but thanks to their tutelage under Maito Gal, she got herself a bowl cut. She was lanky in the way that she was aerodynamically-built without compromising on her attractive qualities; such as her adorably large eyes. "In a minute, Lin-chan. You wanna see something I taught myself?"

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><p>[Naruto's apartment─nighttime…]<p>

It was a long day for Naruto. Despite its name, the Kunoichi Academy was not a school exclusively for kunoichi, as the entire student body was divided between kunoichi students and civilians…the latter of which Naruto belonged to. He had a lot of friends that attended that happened to be on the kunoichi side of the school (although he had a good number of civilian friends too).

Quite a few lessons he had to go through, but the one he rather enjoyed the most was Geography. As he looked on that map, he remembered his original dream of being Hokage one day…unfortunately, since only women could become the Hokage, he had to strike that dream from his mind. Instead, he wanted to travel the world and become some kind of hero helping people like the two Nio did when they were still alive. Perhaps he could get a traveling permit from Baa-chan when he could?

In any case, he was way too tired from the day's lessons for any shenanigans tonight. A few cups of ramen were all that he needed to be satisfied. And with his homework done, he would get to sleep easy tonight. Come to think of it, why was it getting blurry?

And why was he…

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><p>[Somewhere near the outskirts of Konohagakure no Sato─two hours later…]<p>

The kunoichi giggled to herself as she hefted the bag over her shoulder. The job was very easy, and all it took was her special batch of a scentless, sleeping gas incense.

Oh the possibilities she could have with this boy should she sell him off. The client had told her that he wanted the boy gone and suffering whatever it was that kunoichi did to men…she had no idea what it was that the boy could have done to have pissed the man off, but she knew that he was Iwagakure's only chance to have a practically undetectable mole in Konoha. And so to buy off that fat and corrupt bastard, old woman Onoki had sent her out to kidnap this boy.

As she paused in her travels, the kunoichi decided to take another look at her personal kidnap victim. He was very beautiful for a nine-year-old, and the whisker-marks on his face made her want to cuddle him in her arms. Although for some reason, he evoked the image of Iwagakure's accursed enemy Namikaze Minako.

Well, whatever the case may be, she would decide soon what she wanted to do…

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><p><em><strong>AN: I apologize on the lack of quality on this chapter, but I really wanted to make the prologue arc in shorter chapters…you know, to try updating a little more often? **_

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><p><em><strong>CameosReferences:**_

_**Bleach**_

_**Retsu Unohana**_

_**Kōtetsu Isane**_

_**Kenpachi Zaraki**_

_**Ranma ½**_

_**Saotome Ranko─Ranma's female alter-ego**_

_**Tendo Akane─the girl Ranma's in an arranged marriage with**_


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